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• Commented on TV admits it was wrong about PVRs
  Forgive me for being thick, but I don't own a PVR so I don't know: how *do* networks make money off them? People watch more TV, sure, but I can't imagine that they willingly sit through ads while doing it....
• Commented on Oligarch's yacht has a laser anti-photo screen
  Destroying existing photos from afar might be a problem, but I can't imagine that preventing them from being successfully taken is the same thing. That would be like suing someone for walking into frame and ruining your shot. Also, visible...
• Commented on Celebrated Darwin biopic can't find a distributor in the US, producer blames creationists
  I smell BS. Religulous found a distributor. Mel Gibson's snuff film about jesus found a distributor, if not a huge one. I can understand nervousness from major companies with images to uphold, but there are a lot of smaller less-known...
• Commented on The death of "locational privacy"
  I know someone is going to come in here and say that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place. It's always been the case that anyone can follow you around and keep a log of your whereabouts...
• Commented on Climate Camp to London cops: We won't tell you where the next camp is because you keep beating the crap out of us
  misterfricative nailed it in his post. I'd give climate camp a miss this year: right now every cop in the UK is stewing in quiet rage at the cheek of all those climate-hippies. Twenty quid says they'll be equipping rapid...
• Commented on XKCD explains how to be a tech-support guru
  Well there's a little more to it than the flowchart implies. Anyone who "gets computers" understands that most software is designed with certain common conventions in mind. Clipboard functions and text searching are under a menu called Edit, printing is...
• Commented on How to harvest honey from a bee hive
  DJ Shadow and... beekeeping? What an odd pairing of music and activity....
• Commented on Report: Gay men systematically targeted for torture, death in Iraq
  This was a real eye opener. The slow trickle of news coming out of Iraq has led me to falsely believe that some sense of normalcy has returned to the country. That's clearly not the case: death squads still kidnap...
• Commented on Soldier won't go to Afghanistan because he doesn't believe Obama is the president of the United States
  Damn right. Everyone knows that Barack Obama was born in some dirty foreign country and went to school at a hard-line madrassa. OBAMA, OSAMA: a coincidence? I think not. You know this is true; your gut tells you that it...
• Commented on Guatemala: Mayan Activists Protest Dirty Deeds of a Canadian Mining Giant
  Takuan: I wasn't responding to you; we were in fact composing our posts in parallel and submitted them within two minutes of each other. Nothing I wrote was an attempt to refute anything you wrote. And as far as I...
• Commented on Guatemala: Mayan Activists Protest Dirty Deeds of a Canadian Mining Giant
  “The movement, made up almost in its entirety by indigenous local Mam Mayans, reiterated their intention to pursue a peaceful dialogue so as to bring to a close Montana’s mining activities in the region." So the protestors' position is that...
• Commented on School newspaper archives go online, embarrassing student writing and shenanigans become permanent record
  I'd draw a parallel between this and ubiquitous surveillance. In a public place, you can't expect any privacy: that fact is contained in the very definition of the term "public place." A police officer can follow you around, take pictures...
• Commented on Wired publishes documents detailing the FBI's spyware
  Interesting... according to this you get infected with the FBI spyware by clicking a link. This would seem to rely on specific vulnerabilities in specific browsers; that is, internet explorer. And even then, only versions of internet explorer in which...
• Commented on Cactus Dome looks like the top part of the USS Enterprise, but the true purpose is a bummer
  Was it really necessary to spend $239M on a giant concrete dome to cover some dirt on what was then an uninhabited island? Really? What would the harm have been in leaving it there? If you're concerned about the original...
• Commented on Short story in spreadsheet form
  Can we please collectively agree to expunge the phrase "excel spreadsheet" from our vocabulary? It's the kind of thing my coworkers say, and they're all huge tools. The worst of it is that they invariably end up pronounching it as...
• Commented on AIG Ripoff Gets More Maddening
  The burdensome tasks these high-value AIG employees face, such as making decisions based on spreadsheets, appearing confident about those decisions, dressing appropriately, being versed in the subtleties of business etiquette, and dropping the proper names, make them high-value assets that...
• Commented on Blog about vintage kids' books
  Old childrens' books always make me sad for some strange reason. They belonged to a generation that no longer has any use for them: one that collectively grew up and ceased to find any wonder in growing a garden or...
• Commented on FCC raids gang-sponsored pirate radio station in Florida
  I kind of admire the ingenuity, and hey, here are some guys reclaiming the airwaves for small-scale radio with a local focus, delivering music and commentary that's highly relevant to their target audience of violent and brutal thugs. Seriously, is...
• Commented on Did dental examiner create the bite marks that put a man on death row?
  Stop me if I'm making an unreasonable inference, but I think there's a working assumption in the world of law enforcement / prosecution that if a suspect is arrested, they're guilty... that when the cops get their man, they get...
• Commented on fmylife.com
  Far too much high school drama. Seriously....
• Commented on South Park iPhone App a No-Show in Apps Store; Cartman Blames Kyle's Mom.
  So, do we still love Apple? Are we all still standing in line to fellate the most aggressive proponent of DRM in the entire computing industry? Why is everyone rolling over and accepting the iPhone? This is exactly what we...
• Commented on Ghastly working conditions in a Chinese keyboard factory
  What's creepy is that I'm currently typing this post on the exact same lenovo keyboard shown on that page. In the long run, these sorts of labour abuses aren't good for China; being the west's factory floor can't work indefinitely....
• Commented on Flashmob of ATM crooks scores $9 million in 49 cities
  I love a good heist, especially when the only victim is some sort of huge financial institution with deep pockets. Respect....
• Commented on Easy Encryption
  I remember when encryption was still classified as munitions and therefore export-controlled. That's why you have trivially-broken 40-bit keys in things like Microsoft Excel files and DVD's CSS algorithm. I guess the US government realized a decade ago that the...
• Commented on Judges jailed for taking bribes from private juvie prisons to send kids to jail
  Now how often does this kind of thing happen in more subtle ways? How about undertaking a serious examination of the relationship between mandatory minimum sentencing, harsh convictions for petty drug offenses, and the influence of private prison operators?...
• Commented on Man takes 26 years to solve Rubik’s Cube
  This is a fine example of brute force vs. intelligence. The cube can be solved in mere minutes if you've figured out or learned the algorithm, or 26 years if you're just trying to rotate pieces into place based on...
• Commented on BioShock commercial
  You can get Bioshock on Steam right now for $4.99. I guess PS3 users have to pay for the work it took to port the game to whatever nonsense that machine has for a CPU architecture. :)...
• Commented on LA Times on cats as food in Guangdong
  It can't be healthy to eat a cat that's spent its life wandering the streets, gutters, and abandoned buildings of a polluted industrial metropolis, mainly eating the rats and mice it finds there. As much as I love cats, I...
• Commented on Hygiene for the Worker: 1912 guide to being a sweet-smelling prole
  Being somewhat bored tonight, I actually read about 100 pages of this thing. The advice in it actually doesn't age too badly: dress modestly, be clean and presentable, eat well, don't drink and smoke, etc. All of this will help...
• Commented on Canada's Internet is crap
  Most parts of Canada have have two cellular carriers (Rogers and Telus / Bell), though they both sell service under a few other brand names to create the illusion of competition. A duopoly is not a competitive marketplace. Nobody in...